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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

It was amazing the difference we immediately felt in our basement when we came home to the newly installed insulation. It instantly felt more sound proof, more closed in (in a good way), and warmer.

Our main motivation for the insulation was making sure that the basement was more soundproof - and we are happy to report that with the insulation and the sheetrock, it is amazing! Before, you could hear every step from upstairs, or even entire conversations...and now it is really two separate private levels. This was important to us because we want to use the bedroom to have people stay with us and we want to use the entertainment space for bible studies, outreach events, etc so that even with a baby, we will still be able to use our house for ministry.

Check out the insulated ceiling!

Of course Rob had to touch it :)

The dark dingy bedroom :)

While the insulation was super exciting, obviously the change with the biggest impact was the new sheetrock on the ceiling and columns. We again chose to hire out because while we could have cut the sheetrock ourselves, we would have to hire someone for the mudding anyway - and we got a great deal through the contractor, who is a friend of Rob's. At this point, it was more about maximizing time before the baby comes. We LOVE how it turned out.

Besides aesthetics, we came to love this sheetrock on a whole other level when we started painting :) Sheetrock is SO easy to paint compared to cinderblock and paneling. But more on that later...

In these pictures, you will see all the trim is missing - that's coming up next.

Check 'er out!

Closet is still exposed in this picture - paneling is later added to close it in.

Coming up - new lights, trim and painting, painting, painting, painting, and more painting!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Excuse my absence - but we are smack dab in the middle of renovating our basement - and things are crazy up in here!

It was/is our goal to finish the basement off before the baby comes for a couple reasons - 1. We have more time now, 2. We have more money now, 3. Renovations are loud and stressful - not a good combo with a newborn :), 4. We want to maximize our ministry potential in our home and we really feel like utilizing our second level (especially once the baby is born) will help us do that. That's why, although it is stressful and chaotic, we feel like it's money well spent - we are spending the money for the people we will be able to have in our home once it's finished.

Before I show you some changes, let's take a little trip down memory lane shall we? If I could choose one word to describe our basement before, I would say "scary". I did not like going down there - it was dark and dirty and it just kinda creeped me out. Rob loved it and would work out down there all the time - it was truly a man cave :)

The bedroom - no ceiling light, and only one teeny tiny window so seriously lacking in light. Unpainted paneling and two weird closets.

Hallway leading to crawl space. These are the cabinets that are now our built-ins!

Partially painted paneling, electrical wires hanging down :)

I love that big window - adds so much light.

Steep stairs - they need a little loving :)

If you remember our previous post about our basement plans, we were planning the basement reno in the following steps:1. Add ceiling2. Add two walls and door for new bedroom3. Add plumbing. Move wall for laundry room, and add bathroom.4. Move laundry room to basement, move master downstairs, finish closet space. 5. Add carpet to entertainment room and master bedroom.

The first step we took in the renovation process was to get a quote from a contractor friend of ours. He's a volunteer with FCA, has a great heart, is very easy to work with, and is just somebody we trust. He helped us quickly realize that adding a bathroom downstairs would not be realistic for us. It would be $10-15k for a very basic bathroom - and that is just way out of our price range :)

Having that one little thing ruled out really changed the way that we viewed our basement. We no longer would move the master downstairs, and we no longer knew if we wanted another closed off room. We decided to keep the one bedroom that exists and just leave a big open space for hosting and entertainment. I'm so glad we decided to do that!

So first step: update electrical and frame new ceiling and laundry closet! We added wiring for a ceiling fan where the box light used to be, added an overhead light in the bedroom, and a light in our new laundry closet. Then we had all the rest of the wires cleaned up and made safe.

Here is the basement with the new wood framing!

Framing/boxing out the new columns!

So much new wood!

Columns already look so.much.better.

We made the utility closet smaller and fit in a new laundry closet in the extra space! We'll use it as a regular closet for now and eventually move our washer and dryer downstairs.

New opening for the new closet! This is where the old cabinets used to be hanging up.